Consuming a high fibre diet could help you live longer and significantly reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and type 2 diabetes, according to the World Health Organisation, but a whopping 90% of us aren’t eating enough of it.
In order to really reap the benefits, it’s recommended adults eat 30g of fibre per day.
“Fibre is readily available and fibre-rich foods often don’t cost much money,” registered nutrition consultant Charlotte Stirling-Reed tells HuffPost UK.
“If you don’t eat much fibre at the moment, even eating a few more grams a day might be beneficial. It’s always best to gradually increase the amount of fibre you eat rather than doing it suddenly.”
Unsure where to start? Here are five items to add to your shopping list:
1. Cereal
Cereals have gained a bit of a bad rep of late due to the high sugar content in many brands, but low sugar breakfast cereals can be a great source of fibre.
Try Weetabix (which provides 3.8g of fibre per two-biscuit serving) or Shredded Wheat (6g of fibre per serving when consumer with semi-skimmed milk). Alternatively, porridge is also high in fibre at around 9g for half a cup of oats.
2. Granary Bread
Like cereal, bread is frequently unfairly demonised, but not all carbs are bad – in fact, far from it. Opt for wholemeal (around 2.6g fibre per slice) or granary bread (around 1.6g per slice), rather than white.
3. Fruit And Veg
We usually associate fruit and veg with giving us vitamins and minerals, but most are also high in fibre – a single carrot contains around 3g fibre, so get stocking up.
4. Nuts
Switching snacks like chocolate and crisps for nuts can lower your sugar intake and increase the fibre in your diet. A 25g serving of cashew nuts has around 1.9g of fibre, while the same weight of pistachio nuts has 2.9g of fibre.
5. Pasta
Who needs an excuse to eat more pasta? Not us, but if you want one, go for wholewheat pasta – it contains around 6.8g of fibre per 75g portion (and is delicious).